Baby Reagan 'doing great'

LISA MILLERStaff Writer

Published Thursday, January 20, 2005

click photo to enlarge

Reagan Devlin appears in a picture taken by her mother only a few days ago in her hospital room at Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville. Reagan has grown from five pounds to ten pounds in less than two weeks because she is bloated with fluids, and unable to expel them from her body due to her rare liver disease called Patent Ductus Venosus.

By JUSTIN YURKANIN, Staff Reagan Devlin, the St. Augustine baby who flew to Boston Children's Hospital last month for treatment of a rare liver disease, is out of the Intensive Care Unit, and doctors may soon release her from the hospital.

"She's been doing great," Teresa Devlin, Reagan's mother, said in a telephone interview from Boston. "She came off of the ventilator last week."

Reagan received a new liver Dec. 30 after doctors in Boston discovered she had severe liver failure.

Doctors at Wolfson's Children's Hospital in Jacksonville first sent the baby to Boston because they said she had patent ductus venosus. The rare liver condition causes blood to flow on top of the liver instead of through it.

The Boston Children's Hospital conducted more tests and found Reagan had severe liver failure. They then placed her at the top of the nation's transplant list.

"The doctors here literally saved her life," Devlin said. "The day before (the surgery) she was literally dying."

Reagan is healing nicely, Devlin said, and has had only a few complications.

"It's been a miracle," she said.

Doctors told Devlin that Reagan might leave the hospital by next week.

The two would then spend from a month to three months at a transplant home in Boston so Devlin can learn to administer Reagan's medications and use her feeding tube.

The baby will have to be on as many as six different medications and have to fly back to Boston once a year for checkups.

Reagan, who was swollen and discolored before surgery, looks great, her mother said.

"She looks like an actual newborn," Devlin said. "Before, the whites of her eyes were yellow. Now they're normal. She's so pretty."

The baby had her first bath this week and can now wear clothing.

Devlin said Reagan remains at-risk for complications, but her condition has dramatically improved from a month ago.